Source – Berdiansk City Council
Berdiansk is a city with an attitude: open, sincere, viable, and hot-tempered a bit like any southern city. Diverse but always hospitable and welcoming, comfortable and cozy, Berdiansk has a special romantic atmosphere giving hope for a miracle. It is a center for relaxation, recovery, and beauty.
This is how our city is positioned in the Brand Concept defined by a task team on marketing strategy development. The methodological support for Berdiansk Marketing Strategy development was being provided by consultants from the project “Partnership for Local Economic Development and Democratic Governance” (PLEDDG Project) pursuant to the Memorandum on Cooperation for Implementation of the Project implemented by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and funded by the Government of Canada. The deputies approved the draft document at a regular session held on May 23. Head of Resort and Tourism Advertising Department Viktoria Mischenko presented the deputies the structure and priority areas of the Marketing Strategy.
Composed of representatives of business, community, and municipal authorities, the task team defined the Objectives of the Marketing Strategy development:
- Creating positive image of Berdiansk as a livable city. Promoting and advertising the city both on national and international levels as a cultural and tourism center and a business hub in Azov region;
- Creating tourism appeal for a tourist coming to other Azov resorts;
- Involvement of all stakeholders in creating unique tourism products;
- Attracting new and supporting existing businesses. Improving the city’s competitiveness;
- Retaining population and attracting new residents, showing the youth they can live well in Berdiansk;
- Involvement of residents in building the city’s image.
As Viktoria Mischenko noted, the process of building and implementation of Berdiansk Marketing Strategy would back up integrated positioning and promote new, specifically urbanistic, ideas embodied in the territory’s image, and would satisfy the community’s needs. Positively created, notably, tourism and business image would give our city certain benefits.
The Marketing Strategy deliverables shall include additional fundraising for urban development, increased number of tourists, and retention of human potential through improving the quality of urban living.
Urban marketing is a process of planning, coordination, and control over direct links of municipal authorities with various partners and stakeholders.
The features of Berdiansk’s marketing process:
The image of the territory is constantly changing, and this is affected by everyone whose activity is somehow related to this territory: municipal authorities, residents, and every business entity representative involved in rendering travel services.
The traditional brand of Berdiansk may remain as a basis for development of an updated image, however, it requires renewing messages, enhancing and ensuring its comprehensive representation.
The city’s positive image (and its goodwill), created as a result of marketing, is a “long-term” instrument intended for strategic planning. That is why it is no point in waiting for U-turn and measurable social and economic results immediately after this or other marketing campaign is over. This is to be achieved only as a whole.
The Action Plan for Marketing Strategy development and implementation shall include and be made under the principle “let’s make A and then see whether B is required”. Such soft planning and management of marketing activity frequently leads to unexpected interim results, requiring the entire strategy to be urgently amended.
Urban marketing is a routine work, an important component of management culture and an integral part of public relations, as every city is a unique phenomenon, both in virtual and real domains. It is a continuous process of attracting citizens, business companies, sportsmen, cultural figures, and local self-governance on an ongoing basis, with a reasonable policy as a key to successful urban marketing.
The brand embodies beliefs of our tourists, who are external to our city, about the place we have. It specifies advantages of what we offer and thus creates relevance, develops our competitiveness and maximizes our value.
Berdiansk has a visual image approved in 2012. Living with Love in our hearts! Favourite places, hobbies, beloved people. If you are a Berdiansk citizen, you will definitely have your home living on in your heart.
Fresh air, gentle warm sea, velvet beaches, and splendid wing-like tree crowns unfolding over the city. Every tourist or citizen realizes these unique advantages.
We, as devotees of our city, relish this bounty of nature.
The logo has embedded in ads, urban space, and in citizens and tourists’ perceptions.
However, the logo shows Berdiansk as an owner of natural blessings rather than as a social, cultural, and economic phenomenon.
Therefore, Berdiansk’s Brand Concept was developed together with the task team, representing the idea and essence of the contemporary city.
Berdiansk is sunny, bright, and bloomy, giving its tourists positive emotions, a sea of impressions, a sea of love and relaxation! It is the best city on the sea.
Berdiansk is a dynamic and active business city which knows how to be goal-oriented and successful all year round, and, at the same time, a resort city which can give its visitors comfort, excellent service and an opportunity to enjoy its nature.
Berdiansk is versatile and multifarious.
Berdiansk is a city with an attitude: open, sincere, viable, and hot-tempered a bit like any southern city. Diverse but always hospitable and welcoming, comfortable and cozy, Berdiansk has a special romantic atmosphere giving hope for a miracle. It is a center for relaxation, recovery, and beauty.
It is a city of high business potential ready for cooperation, partnership, and development.
The Areas of Marketing Strategy:
Essentially, Marketing Strategy describes the targeted interaction between self-governance bodies, business, and organized community within three areas: “Positioning”, “Communication”, and “Organizational Support”. All three areas blend seamlessly into the Brand Concept in terms of idea of the city, territory, and quintessence of urban identity.
The Area P. “Positioning” of “Berdiansk is attractive year-round” will be developed for Berdiansk in line with the vision defined in the course of preparation of Berdiansk Development Strategic Plan, where resort and tourism development stands out as a number one priority. However, positioning calls for emphasizing the most prominent aspects of the city’s image that can ensure its advantages against other Azov coastal territories.
The Area C. “Communication”. This area provides for reinforcement of the image in question (positioning) in the minds of tourists, local people. investors, tour operators, mass media representatives via building a meaningful communication policy aimed at targeted and consistent distribution of information products focused on the essence of Berdiansk’s positioning, receiving feedback, continuous monitoring of performance, actual trends and adaptation to new conditions. This is a seamless process, where Marketing Strategy may outline, in this area, the information trends underlying the process of creating of information products nowadays. They are shown on a map of communication messages which will be constantly updated and serve as a basis for building informational policy.
The Area O. “Organizational Support” describes the system of the Brand and Marketing Strategy implementation management. Given that Berdiansk has traditions of building marketing policy in management culture, the existing units’ functions are being detailed within this area. The principles of interaction with other marketing entities are defined as well. The emphasis is put on the widest use of municipalism idea.
Implementation of the measures developed in terms of three areas will help achieve Vision, which meaning has been detailed in the course of Marketing Strategy development.
The positioning of the territory shown both in the brand promise and the slogan/key message is following: “A sea of hospitality by a sea of pleasure”.